The Door

 The gentle sway of the waves, which once lulled me to sleep, now angrily crash against the side of the ferry. The bellowing of the horn signalling our arrival rings in my ear. I hear the footsteps of the captain, and then the swish of his coat as he raises his hand to knock on my cabin door. His knuckles rap against the wood three times with a soft thump. 

     “Miss? The crews preparing for docking now, won’t be much longer till we hit the island, best gather your things.” His footsteps retreat, and i’m left with the sounds of the sea, my luggage sits by my side, still neatly packed from the day I left. I sling my bag over my shoulder and grab the broken handle of my suitcase, which sometimes sticks if you don’t pull it the right way. 

     The door clicks shut behind me and I climb the stairs to the deck. The first mate stands by the bow of the ship, heavy in conversation with another crew member, although she stops briefly to wave to me as I pass by. We edge closer to the dock and on the far end I see the silhouette of Ms. Sapetto, my old neighbor and babysitter. 

     The crew finish preparations and soon enough i’m stepping off the ramp onto the rickety dock. Ms. Sapetto meets me halfway with a bruising hug around my waist. It seems she’s ditched her old tight pin bun in favor of a much looser style. Strands of gray peek out from long flowing locks and her face is dotted with more wrinkles than I remember. Ms. Sapetto steps away to dab at her eyes. 

     “Oh, darling I-” A tissue tightly grasped in her hand is barely deterring the tears that threaten to spill from her eyes. 

     “I’ve missed you, oh you’ve grown so much, you look just like your mother I almost thought I was seeing things when you stepped off.” 

     “Thank you, I’ve missed you too.” 

     She grabs hold of my arm leading me towards the exit. 

     “I wish it would’ve been under better circumstances but I assume you’re here about your father.” I nod. “It can’t be helped I suppose, after all that happened, he began to lose himself. Disappearing like this is a shock, but- well I guess it was almost to be expected.” She sighs, squeezing my arm slightly. 

     “I hope your mother is taking care of him.” 

     The walk to my father’s house is long but Ms. Sapetto spends the rest of the time filling me in on all I had missed. The cafe we used to frequent had closed, sold by the couple who managed it. They were having a baby and decided to move to the mainland. Ms. Sapetto seemed greatly disappointed with missing the chance to babysit again. She asked a couple questions about me, but I could barely get a word in edgewise. 

     When we at last reach my father’s street she’s laughing about the time as a child I confused a jalapeño with a pickle and wouldn’t touch either of them for a year afterwards. Her laugher dies with a grimace when she notices his house. 

     “You know after you were taken your father refused to speak to me, even more so when he found out I was the one who called the authorities, Alana’s death took a piece with him that I don’t think he ever got back. The day before you left he was banging on about how he needed you and I couldn’t do this to him. The man he became wasn’t fit to raise a child, I had to. I hope you never resented me for that, and I hope whatever you find in that house helps you.” 

     She grabs me in for another hug and I hold on for a few seconds longer before she’s pulling away and i’m watching her leave. 

     His house seems foreign to me, as if all the life in it had abandoned it, and in a way it had. The windows no longer held their soft glow, the paint seemed paler and chipped away in some spots. The patio swing I used to sit in with my mother was gone. The outline of the legs still remained embedded in the porch. The door baring down on me was the same as it had been when I left, the window at the top was frosted over but inside the house was dark. 

     After my father was reported missing, the police sent me a key they found in the mailbox addressed to me. I fished it out of my pocket and swung the door open. 

     The house was a mess. Papers were strewn about the floor, almost every spot covered in white. The couch was overturned and the center cushion had been cut open and the stuffing tore out, a trail of it’s innards lead toward the kitchen. Ignoring the disaster of the living room, I ascended the stairs to my room and my fathers study. Lined at the bottom step was a small drawing of the house, I had drew it with permanent marker, my parents could never fully get it out. The rest of the staircase though, was scratched to pieces. The banister especially had crude carvings of eyes plastered all over it.  

     My room was the first on the right, across from the bathroom. Compared to the mess downstairs it seemed unchanged, even down to the small series of nicks by the handle. I had been there when that happened. 

     Ms. Sapetto hadn’t been the only one who noticed the change in my father after my mother passed. Weeks after the funeral he began to shut himself in his study and refused to come out. On the rare occasion he did, he spent an unusual amount of time staring at my eyes and muttering about how they looked just like my mother's. His newfound obsession with eyes only grew. 

     On the day of the incident, he seemed like his old self again. He greeted me downstairs the morning with breakfast. Pancakes coated in strawberry syrup and a small dollop of whipped cream. We ate together for the first time in a while and after he even took me to the beach to collect seashells. When we returned home, he seemed to switch again. He ushered me upstairs with promises to make everything better, that we had suffered so much because of my mother's death but he knew a way for all of us to be together again. 

     He stood me in front of my door, hands grasped on my shoulders. “The eye is the window to the soul,” He said, all he had to do was open the window. 

     I hadn’t noticed it then but grasped in his left hand was a small pocket knife, the same one my mother had gotten him as a gift that last Christmas, both of their initials were carved into the handle. 

      He took the knife, placed it right under my eye and began to slice. The pain was intense but it didn’t last long, in my shock I socked him right in the gut and ran into my room, locking it behind me. He spent hours begging me to come out. That he was sorry and he would never do it again but I refused. His shouts and the thud of the knife hitting the door was all I heard for the rest of the night. 

     The next morning he acted as if nothing happened but he still spent every moment he could staring at my eyes. Shortly after that is when Ms. Sapetto reported him and I was taken within a day. 

     I open my door, I expect to see the pale pink of my bedroom walls. The flower comforter spread messily across the bed, maybe accompanied by my favorite toy, a small plush giraffe. The room, however has been stripped bare, instead replaced with porcelain dolls that seem to occupy every empty space left, except the center of the room, which has been carefully cleared. A single picture frame rests there. The dolls form a path to the frame and a photo of my parents after their wedding night is inside. On the back in my fathers scratchy handwriting is “Alana and Tim, 1997,” written in red pen. I set the frame back down and look up, coming face to face with one of the dolls. I stare into it, it’s eyes are gone, nothing but a socket left behind. In fact all of the dolls are missing their eyes. Tiny scratch marks decorate their faces and the emptiness of their expression startles me. I don’t stay in my room for much longer. 

     My parents room is past mine and then further at the end of the hall is my father’s study. My arms feel heavy now, heavier then when I entered. I feel my heart beat against my ribcage. I want to leave but something draws me towards the study. A feeling of longing, that I don’t quite understand. 

    The door opens easily, already ajar when I push on it. I find the missing doll eyes. Jars upon jars of doll eyes rest on the floor, several piles surround the corner by my father’s desk. One wall contains the faint drawing of a door, in the center is a pupil, filled in with red paint. The other is decorated with anatomic pictures of eyes, pinned in a row. My father’s desk is clear except an open notebook off to the side. All it says is “The door is complete.” 

     The rest of the notebook is filled with equations that don’t make sense and theories about the eye. Multiple pages contain information about the range of color humans can see and how much damage it requires to blind someone. I set the notebook down. I’m ready to leave. The door seems so far away but I take one step at a time, one foot in front of the other. 

     I hear a soft thump from a far. I tell myself it’s outside but it continues, it’s insistent. Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump. Like someones banging on something with their fist. I’m almost out when I hear something new. Someone’s whispering, but it’s not just one person, theres another. It’s frantic, a hushed conversation between two, going back and forth. I don’t know why I stay, hand frozen by the door frame. The whispers stop. 

     I hear a knock, much louder this time, somewhere inside the room with me. I turn around and the knock sounds again. The wall containing the drawing jolts after each knock. It feels like the pupil is staring at me. I hear the sound of wall paper ripping. The edges of the door widen, turning into long cracks that stretch out towards the ceiling. 

     “Don’t be afraid dear, we’re coming home.” It’s my mother.

      The door opens.